About

Birmingham By Numbers is both Birmingham and the UK’s only data focused website for the people working, living, commuting and studying in Britain’s second city.

The website is the brainchild of Alessandro Sorrentino (@Loftysandro) an undergraduate student at Birmingham City University where he’s taken a particular interest in both data and investigative journalism.

But why is Birmingham By Numbers working only on data stories?

In the last ten years, the amount of free data available to the public has risen massively, the introduction of the freedom of information act in 2001 paved the way for a new era in investigative reporting.

Just look at the power data has, The MP’s expenses scandal was arguably one of the biggest stories of the noughties and its core was the data which showed what MP’s where claiming.

While many sites both nationally and locally have data units which publish data themed articles, many are published Irregularly and some have not been updated in a while. Birmingham By Numberswants to change this by bringing the people of Birmingham regular articles that use original data to highlight what’s going on in Birmingham.

Here at Birmingham By Data we have a simple mission:

To provide the people of Birmingham free, unbiased, informative and factual news which they can use to be better inform themselves about the city they live, work and travel in.